Coinbase appeared to add more than 5.5 billion XRP almost overnight, but the enormous increase was not a purchase, institutional inflow or new transfer to the exchange.
XRPScan clarified that it had completed identification and labeling of 146 previously unidentified Coinbase wallets, causing existing XRP balances to move from the “Unknown” category into Coinbase’s consolidated total.
An automated rich-list update had initially shown Coinbase gaining roughly 5.57 billion XRP, or 4,870%, triggering speculation about a potentially massive accumulation event. The near-simultaneous decline in unidentified balances, however, pointed toward a reclassification rather than an actual blockchain inflow.
Following the update, Coinbase was associated with about 5.68 billion XRP across 152 accounts, placing it third among identified entities on the XRP rich list.
5.68 Billion XRP Does Not Mean Coinbase Owns It
That distinction is the more important part of the story.
A rich list measures balances associated with identified addresses. It does not establish who ultimately owns the assets economically.
XRPScan explicitly warns that large exchange balances commonly represent pooled customer funds, meaning Coinbase’s ranking should primarily be interpreted as evidence of its XRP custody footprint, not a proprietary 5.68 billion XRP investment.
That distinction matters particularly when on-chain data is used to infer institutional buying or selling.
Coinbase’s publicly disclosed cbXRP reserves, for example, currently total about 123.96 million XRP, backing almost the same amount of wrapped cbXRP on Base. That is only a fraction of the XRP associated with the wider Coinbase wallet cluster, underscoring that different Coinbase-linked balances can serve very different purposes.
Coinpaper recently highlighted a similar need to distinguish infrastructure from ownership when 4,011 XRP wallets were drained through an application-layer compromise rather than a failure of the XRP Ledger itself.
XRP Rises Despite the False Inflow Signal
The clarification came while XRP itself was trading near $1.43, up roughly 2.7% over 24 hours and more than 7% over seven days, according to Coinbase pricing data.
That market strength has coincided with a broader improvement in XRP’s regulatory backdrop. We recently examined XRP’s position following the latest CLARITY Act delay and the SEC’s inclusion of XRP among assets referenced in new crypto ETF rules.